The Olive Tree

The Olive Tree

Tawfiq Zaiyyad Because I do not knit wool, Because I am always hunted And my house is always raided, Because I cannot own a piece of paper, I shall carve my memoirs On the home yard olive tree. 1 shall carve bitter reflections, Scenes of love and of yearning For my stolen orange grove And the lost tombs of my dead. I shall carve all my strivings For the sake of remembrance, For the time when I shall drown them In the avalanche of triumph. I shall carve the serial number Of every stolen piece of land, The spot of my village on the map And the houses And the trees And all the wild blooms That are blown up Or uprooted. I shall carve the names Of all connoisseurs in torture, The names of their prisons, The trade-marks of their chains, The archives of the jailors And the maledictions. I shall carve dedications, To memories threading to eternity, To the sanguine soil of Deir Yassin And Kafr Kassem, I shall carve on top of all The intense heights of the tragedy, The pounding and the bitter strife Which I bear Up the ladder of grief To the peak. I shall carve the sun' s reckonings And the moon's whisperings And what a skylark recalls At a love-deserted well. For the sake of remembrance, For the sake of all And every thing I shall continue to carve On the Horne yard olive tree.